


A Better Place

by wbss21



Category: Naoki Urasawa's Monster - Fandom
Genre: Brainwashing, Child Abuse, Depression, Emotional Manipulation, Gen, PTSD, Suicidal Thoughts, mental manipulation
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-12-23
Updated: 2019-07-18
Packaged: 2019-09-25 16:23:12
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 4
Words: 14,464
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17124713
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/wbss21/pseuds/wbss21
Summary: She remembers looking up at his beautiful face, and the way he'd smiled at her.  Remembers how there had been no fear in his eyes.  No regret, or even sadness.  He'd smiled at her with so much peace, like she was the only thing that mattered in the whole world.  Happy to die with her, because she was the only thing that mattered.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Hey everyone! So, I recently finished watching the incredible anime “Monster”, by Naoki Urasawa, and found myself pretty obsessed with it, haha. Anyway, of course the character I found most interesting was that of Johann Liebert, and of course found myself wanting to explore the character more, and particularly his relationship with his sister. Thus this story. Obviously a warning for spoilers for the series. If you haven't seen it, I couldn't recommend it more. Definitely go out and watch it! If you like what you read, please leave a comment and let me know if you think I should continue or not! Thank you and please enjoy!

“Hold still you little bastard.” 

The man's hold on his arm is painfully tight. Threatening. He tries to pull away anyway, eyes locked on the man's face. The man's expression twists in hate and anger.

“Restrain him, you idiot!” He snaps at one of the white shirts, and the other man comes around and behind him, wraps an arm around his neck, forcing his head back, the other coming around his chest so that he can't move at all.

The needle goes in to the crook of his elbow, like it always does, pain for a moment, and then numbness. An awful fog drifts over his thoughts, the face of the man in front of him losing focus in his eyes.

They did this when they wanted to talk to him. When they wanted him to tell them things about himself. 

The rest of the time they kept him under, or ran their tests.

Johann had lost track of how long it had been since he'd come here, to this place. Since they'd separated him from the other boys. There were no clocks here, in the orphanage basement. No windows. No way to tell if it was morning or evening, day or night.

It was one of their methods. Blunt and obvious, but it worked. It kept him confused, disoriented. The drugs the same. 

He couldn't remember what had happened when he woke. He couldn't remember a lot of things, lately. 

Something they were doing... something they were doing to him. His memories were beginning to feel vague, distant. Sometimes he felt sure he remembered something... some experience, only then he would begin to think of it, and it was as though he were viewing it through a distorted mirror, a sense of detachment permeating the pictures in his head, and he would feel nothing... nothing about any of it. 

It was getting harder and harder to remember where he had even come from, before arriving at this place. Getting harder to remember where he had been, before...

He had been with Anna. He knew that.

Anna... they wanted to take her away from him too, but he wouldn't let that happen. He wouldn't forget her, no matter what.

They were all going to die.

He had to get out of here and find Anna. 

They pick him up and carry him to that room. His whole body feels numb, skin burning and tingling from the drug they've shot into his bloodstream. He hates this. He hates them. Can barely hold his head up when they shove him down into the steel chair at the hard, metal table they use during these sessions. The chair is cold against his body, the flimsy material of the sleeveless shirt and loose pants they make him wear doing nothing to protect him from it.

The man across from him doesn't look at him, hands busying themselves with stacks of paper. Files on him, he knows. The man nods, telling the men who brought him here that they can leave.

The lids of his eyes feel so heavy. Thoughts form and break apart in his head. Can't focus. Can't hold on to anything. 

The man across begins to speak and his voice sounds far away. He can see the man's mouth moving, but the words seem detached, somehow. Like they're coming from someone else.

“Remarkable.” He says. “Astonishing.”

The man looks up at him, small eyes hard and openly lustful. He wants what Johann has. He wants to strip it away and keep it for himself. 

Johann's mouth feels dry, tongue heavy. He knows what he has to say to this man to destroy him. Only the answers dance away from him before he can bring them out in words. The world spins. He's dizzy. He thinks he's going to throw up.

“Your intelligence equivalency score was unprecedentedly high. Well past two hundred. Remarkable.”

Johann looks back at him and feels sick. Thinks they... thinks they put something else in his system this time. Never felt this sick from it before. Doesn't know... doesn't know what they did. If he could just hold on to what he knows, he could...

“How do you feel today?” The man asks.

Johann blinks. His eyes are dry too. They hurt. The bright lights in the room burned against them. The question takes too long to register. He doesn't want to answer, but he can't control it when he does. 

“... I... feel... sick...” His voice sounds as distant and detached from him as the man's.

The man's face doesn't change but his eyes gleam. He takes pleasure in the answer.

“To be expected. You know, for as perfect as your face is, you're really rather a frail child. Much smaller than the other boys here your age. A weak constitution. So of course you react more extremely to the drugs. To physical trauma too, I think.”

He glances down at the papers in front of him again, the corners of his mouth lifting.

“Indeed, your last physical showed you rather underweight and below average in stature. And that perfect white skin of yours takes longer to heal.”

He thinks of Anna. He thinks of her, and it's only her... only her who matters. He has to get out of here and find Anna.

They were walking together, the two of them. He held her hand in his own. They were together then. 

The man keeps talking, but there aren't any words anymore.

He thinks of Anna, and misses her so much. 

“What's that you said?” The man asks.

“We... were... to... ge... ther....”

“Answer my question boy. I asked where it is you came from.”

“Me and Anna... we were together. We were the only two people... left in the world... I had to get her... away... away from the monster.... I had to... get her away...”

Loud slap explodes in his ear. He hears it before he feels it. Pain comes quick after, and he's on the floor suddenly. Eyes register a darkening shadow, even as he can't hear anything for the loud ringing filling his head. 

Feels the now familiar grip of a powerful hand close round his wrist, yanking him up. Thin bones creak and ache beneath his skin. Feels like they'll crack in two. Sees the man's face for only a moment before his head is snapped to one side, then another. Two, sharp slaps across the mouth, and the taste of his own blood coats his tongue.

He's going to be beaten now. 

That's what they did, when he didn't give them the answers they wanted. 

It was alright. He was going to get out of here. He was going to find Anna.

And everything would be alright... then.

//

Nina stares at her brother and wonders at how it is he can still look so beautiful, even now.

He won't wake up.

He's been in a coma for over a year, and he won't wake up. The doctors tell her that likely he never will.

Nina doesn't know how to feel about that.

Sometimes she wishes he had simply died. That night in Ruhenheim. Sometimes she thinks it would have been easier, if he had simply died, and she could have moved on from him, finally. Could have moved on with her life and forgotten him...

She thinks that, sometimes. But she knows it's not true.

She could never forget Johann. 

Not really.

He had loved her. She understands that now. Despite everything. Despite all the horror and evil of what he had done. 

She understood, finally, when she'd allowed herself to remember.

He'd only ever been trying to protect her. In his own, misguided way. He'd only wanted to protect her.

But he was so messed up. His mind was so messed up. Somehow he'd come to believe her memories were his own. Her experiences were his own. He thought... She doesn't know what it is he'd thought. What he'd felt. And she hadn't realized... she hadn't realized, until the end, in that small town surrounded by mountains, watching her big brother in the rain, his face stricken and lost and in so much pain... she hadn't realized just how frail he'd always been.

Johann had seemed to her for so long like something inhuman. For so long, he almost hadn't seemed real. No flaw, no weakness, no vulnerability.

She remembers, what seems an eternity ago now, when they'd run away together from Czechoslovakia, from the Three Frogs. From Bonaparta. She remembers holding so tight to Johan's hand then, him holding just as tightly back to hers, and how he hadn't ever let her go, even as she'd begun to slow and stumble and drag, unable to keep up. He'd held on to her. Wouldn't let go like... like their mother had. Even when she'd at last collapsed in weakness and exhaustion, and she knew... she knew Johann could have gone on without her. He was so strong, and he could have gone on. Only he'd stopped, and hadn't let go of her hand. He'd stopped and fallen to his knees at her side, laid his hands on her, ready to die with her. Ready to die with her, there. Not like their mother then. Not like her at all. He wouldn't leave her, even if it meant his own death. 

She remembers looking up at his beautiful face, and the way he'd smiled at her. Remembers how there had been no fear in his eyes. No regret, or even sadness. He'd smiled at her with so much peace, like she was the only thing that mattered in the whole world. Happy to die with her, because she was the only thing that mattered.

She hadn't realized then, to Johann, she had been.

She hadn't realized. Oh, God, he'd meant it when he'd told her the world was hers. She hadn't realized, for him, there was nothing and nobody else, and he'd believed that. He'd believed it so completely. 

And she'd betrayed him. She'd killed him. Shot him in the brain. And when he'd woken, she'd screamed, and run. Run away from him like he was a monster. 

What that did to him... what that did...

She blames herself still. Tenma tells her she can't. Tells her what happened to Johann isn't her fault. Dieter tells her too. All of them. But they're wrong. Only trying to be kind, she knows. But they're wrong.

Johann had needed her. More, she realizes, then she had ever needed him. And he'd tried so hard to protect her, to keep her safe.

In return she'd shown him her repulsion and fear.

He never would have hurt her though. She realizes that now too. That he never even meant to.

But she'd treated him like a monster. And he had been defined by her. Had defined himself by her.

Her belief became his own.

She'd betrayed him, and it had been his very undoing.

“Oh, Johann,”

She reaches out, lying her hand along his.

His skin is cold to the touch, his hand delicate and thin beneath hers. She can feel the fragile bones under the surface, and is transfixed for a moment by how much whiter his skin is than hers. 

He looks as cold as he feels. 

She watches the slow, even rise and fall of his thin chest, the collar bone pronounced and obvious above the hem of his hospital gown. His arms are like sticks, lying positioned down at his sides, attaching to knobby wrists. He looks frail and weak and like he weighs nothing at all, so many tubes and attachments going in to him, the only things keeping him alive, keeping him breathing, and Nina thinks it's hard to believe she was ever so afraid of him. His nearly white hair falls limp and loose around his head. He looks so peaceful, his perfect face relaxed and smooth and so painfully young. 

Something about that thought makes Nina's eyes sting suddenly, tears welling up so fast she doesn't have time to try and stop them.

He was so young, barely more than a boy, and this was how he had ended up. He had been so blindingly brilliant. So unbelievably gifted and impossibly intelligent. He could have been anything. Anything he wanted. 

She had graduated from University. Would be going for her law degree soon. She was living her life. Fulfilling her dreams. She had a family in Dr. Tenma, and Dieter, and Dr. Reichwein. She had friends who she saw every day. Who she spent so much time with. People who loved and cared about her, who she laughed with, and cried with, and could show her true self to.

And Johann was here. Her perfect, invincible, unknowable brother. He was here now, trapped in a state somewhere between life and death. Unaware of the world around him. Part of nothing, and no one. Lost in a sea of darkness. Of pure, empty nothing, stretching on forever and ever.

No one ever came here to visit him. Only her, and sometimes Dr. Tenma, when he wasn't overseas somewhere. 

She doesn't bother trying to stop her tears now.

She doesn't want this to happen to her brother.

Even after all he had done. Even though she knows, if he had somehow woken up, he would have been put on trial and convicted, and likely faced life in prison... She doesn't want this to be it for him. She doesn't want to think that she'll never speak to him again. That she'll never hear his voice again. Or look into his eyes, see him looking back at her.

It would be tantamount to a miracle if he ever did wake. She knows that. She knows she should resign herself to the fact that he won't wake. That he's going to grow old here, in this police hospital, his body withering away until he finally dies. She tells herself she should feel relief at that. That his suffering will finally be at an end then. That, as he is now, she prays, his suffering is stopped too.

That would be the normal thing to do. The normal thing to expect.

But Johann had never been normal.

“If anyone could wake up from this, I'd think it would be you.” She says, her voice hardly a whisper. She half laughs, shaking her head. “Please Johann... wake up.” Her hand claps over his, squeezing it gently. “I miss you big brother.” She tells him, hot tears slipping down her cheeks. “... And I'm sorry. I'm just so, so sorry...”

//

He dreams of his sister.

He dreams of her while waking. Memories of her and him. 

They were again children together, and Anna was by his side. He can see her there, down on her knees in the wild grass, picking flowers, her dress rumpled and dirty around the hem, and she's so beautiful and perfect and the only other person in the world. 

He wants her to have everything. He wants her to have the entire world. He'll give that to her, someday. 

“Here Anna.” He says, falling to his knees beside her. They were running out of food. He doesn't mind for himself. But Anna will need more to eat. He'd packed what food was in their apartment before they left, made sandwiches and filled a canister with water, but it had been so little, and they had no money. He hands her the second to last sandwich, the cap of the canister filled with water. He smiles at her as he watches her face light up, taking the food and drink from him.

“Thank you big brother!” She smiles back, and he leans back on his hands, watching her hungrily eat.

After a time she looks up at him, her sweet face pulling into worry.

“Why aren't you eating, brother?” She asks, and he smiles at her again.

“I don't need to eat. Don't worry.” He tells her.

She frowns, and then she giggles, and she's the most beautiful being in the world.

“Yes you do silly! Here, have some of mine.” She holds out her half eaten meal, and he shakes his head. 

“No.” He says. “It's for you. I'll be alright.” Again he smiles, and his sister looks unsure. But finally she seems to accept it.

“Okay!” She laughs, and continues eating. 

He looks out across the expanse before them. The sun is beginning to sink beneath the horizon, casting a deep, burning glow across the sky and field, rendering everything in a hazy, dreamlike glow. They haven't made it far outside the city yet. But he has a plan. If they can make it across the boarder, they'll be safe. They won't be brought back. He has to get her across the boarder. He has to find more food and water, and get his sister across the boarder. 

“I feel sleepy.” She says beside him. He turns and looks and sees his sister lying in the grass, her eyes half closed.

“Go to sleep.” He tells her. “I'll wake you when it's time to keep going.”

“... Okay.” She says, and she's already almost asleep. A moment more, and she is.

He lays his hand on her shoulder. Can feel the rise and fall of her breath.

“Don't worry.” He leans down, presses a kiss to her cheek. “I'll keep you safe. I promise I always will.”

Johann blinks, and he's standing on the street. The memory of hazy orange glow no longer burns his eyes. The sky here is bleak with black and billowing rain clouds, and the water comes down, sharp and hard and cold against him. Sheets of it, thick and unrelenting. The hospital gown soaks through in seconds and clings useless against his skin. He thinks he must be shivering with the cold, but he isn't sure. He's standing on the street outside her home. She has a home now. Anna does. Nina. His sister. 

She'd told him about it. While he was sleeping. She doesn't know he knows though. She no longer held that connection with him. He could hear her still. But she couldn't hear him. She hadn't been able to hear him since that night. He'd lost her then... that night.

She's living with a young boy. The one who had been shadowing Dr. Tenma. Deiter. And the old man, Dr. Reichwein. Dr. Tenma comes, his sister had told him, when he wasn't working over seas.

Anna... Nina... he calls her Anna in his head, but he knows she would want to be called Nina. Both are false names anyway. His sister had told him she missed him. He doesn't think she quite understands her claim though. He doesn't think she quite knows if she really meant it. 

She would be horrified to see him.

She wouldn't know yet. That he had woken up.

He'd escaped earlier tonight. 

That had been difficult. 

He'd woken up and his legs hadn't worked. He'd known they wouldn't, somehow. He didn't know how much time had passed, but felt it had been a long time, and when he'd removed the life support tubes from his body and pushed himself from the bed, he'd collapsed to the ground in a dead weight. 

He'd made it to the window, no bars covering it, no handcuffs keeping him trapped. His arms had been nearly as useless as his legs, shaking violently and weak as he'd struggled to open the window's latch and push it open. 

He'd thought, then, if he had been on some high up floor, he would have jumped, and killed himself.

Only the drop to the ground had been less than five feet, and the grounds of the hospital had been dark, no one around to see him as he pulled himself across the lawn, making his way towards cover. 

It was pure luck he hadn't been spotted.

Johann wasn't used to relying on luck to get anything done.

He'd pulled himself as far from the hospital as he could before his body had at last failed him, and he'd had to stop in exhaustion. Afterward he'd lain for a long time in the same spot, hidden by thick shrubbery and trees, maybe a mile or so from where he'd come, and willed his legs to work.

It had begun to rain during the course, and he had thought of Ruhenheim. He had thought of Bonaparta, and Dr. Tenma, and Anna. All there. He had thought Dr. Tenma would shoot him then. He had been so close to it. Just Dr. Tenma and Anna left then. Just them to know and remember who he was. He had thought to erase Bonaparta. Erase all who knew him. For Anna. He had wanted to do that for Anna. One last gift. And then himself. Erase him from her life forever. Give her at last freedom from his hell. Give her freedom from past memories. From all the monsters.

Anna was another person.

They weren't the same, after all.

He had always believed that. Somehow. He had believed... like in the story book, he was only a part of her. They would always be together. Because he was her... she was him... 

That hadn't been true though.

He'd only realized, at last, when she had told him. Her memories. Not his. They hadn't been his. 

He'd sat there in their apartment. Alone. He'd been alone for a long time then. Anna was gone. Mother was gone. He'd begged Mother not to leave him. He remembered crying, begging her to stay. But she went. She went away without looking at him. Without speaking. There had been that story book. Sitting there on the floor. Bonaparta had left it. Left it there to be his only companion. And he'd picked it up, and he had begun to read, over and over and over, waiting. Waiting for Anna. He knew she would come back. He knew. The story had been about him, and Anna. She would come back when all the other people in the world were gone. And they would be together again.

But Anna hadn't needed him. Like Mother hadn't needed either of them.

He would die, and she would be free.

That's what he had thought.

He isn't sure of that anymore, though. He'd tried dying, but still he lived, and his sister had told him she missed him.

He had always missed her.

Sitting alone in that apartment...

Waiting for her to come back...

Light glares in the periphery of his vision, headlights cutting through rain, coming towards him.

Johann turns, ignoring the slash of cold and rain against his skin. Ignoring the weakness of his legs, ready to fail him. Moves away from the street, letting the shadows close in around him, hiding him away.

He dreams of his sister, and wonders if she ever dreams of him.


	2. Chapter 2

“What are we gonna do?” 

Nina's eyes cut to Dieter, her hand covering her mouth. She feels strange. Detached, almost. Like this isn't really happening. Isn't really happening to her.

She's standing in the center of the room, and she doesn't know how much time has passed since the policemen left, informing her and Dieter of what she had always known in her heart was a possibility, despite the certainty of the doctors that he brother would never wake.

Johann had woken up from his coma after nearly a year and a half and had vanished from his room at the hospital sometime during the last night. They didn't know where he was. They were out looking for him now.

“Nina, what are we gonna do!?” Dieter insists, and she doesn't know. 

She doesn't know what they're going to do. She doesn't even know what it is she's feeling. 

There had been times she'd felt so powerfully desperate for her brother to wake up. For her to know he would live. That he would have his life, even if... even if it meant spending the rest of it inside a prison cell. There were other times she'd felt certain it would be better for him never to wake at all. To her awful shame, times even she'd hoped he would simply die, there in the hospital. For all their sakes. 

He had woken though, and had escaped, and somehow she'd always known, deep down, that was the only way it could be with Johann. He was too much. Too much of everything to succumb to his own, mortal frailty. 

She's terrified, she thinks. She should be. Her brother was insane. And so horrifically dangerous. As dangerous as any person ever could be. 

She doesn't know what he'll be thinking. What he'll do, or plan on doing. In truth, she doesn't even know if he's okay. Physically okay.

He'd been in a coma for so long. He'd been shot in the head, for Christ's sake! The second time in his life, he'd been shot in the head. There was no way he would have just been able to... to pop awake and walk away from all that without some sort of damage. As inhuman as Johann had at times seemed to her, she knows that wasn't ever really true. She'd seen enough with her own eyes how very human he really was. God, she... she remembers what he had looked like, that night in Ruhenheim, when the bullet had impacted the side of his head, and he'd gone down, collapsing to the rain soaked ground, his body crumpling, and his head bouncing up as it hit the pavement. She remembers his hair. His beautiful, white blonde hair tousling as it was jarred out of place by the impact of the ground, and then watching as that hair had splattered over with thick blood. And then he'd been still. So still. He'd seemed so small to her then. Frail and weak, and she could only see him as a boy, lying at her feet. The same, awful image of his hair, soaked in his own blood, his pale skin somehow paler still, his face somehow still beautiful as an angel.

Some part of her feels an almost overwhelming relief. And with that feeling, an awful sense of guilt. Johann had killed so many people. He had killed her own parents. So many people who didn't deserve to die. So many people who would feel Johan himself deserved to die, then, and Nina couldn't really argue against them if they did. She couldn't blame them, if that's what they thought.

Only she couldn't control how she felt either. Couldn't control her love for her brother, no matter what he had done. She doesn't know if she should apologize for that. She doesn't know if she even could, or if it would even matter.

Like everything else with Johan, this all in some way felt like an abstraction. Detached. Knowing Johan was alive and out there wouldn't be the same as having him standing here before her. She knows that. And she doesn't know how she would feel were he to suddenly appear, now, in the flesh.

“We should call Tenma. We need to tell him!” Dieter keeps talking, and Nina snaps out of her thoughts, looking at him. He's standing in front of her, his face lined in obvious fear and panic. 

Dieter had grown a lot in the last year. Taller than her now. But still he looked as young as he was, only 14.

She shakes her head, her mouth feeling dry.

“We won't be able to reach him. Not by phone anyway.” She says. And that was true. Tenma was, last she heard, in the Sudan. It took months just for letters to arrive there, and there was no internet access where he was. Beyond that, what would Tenma do, if he heard Johan had woken and escaped?

Tenma's relationship with Johan was, in some ways, as complex as her own. 

In some ways, Tenma had formed a closer bond with her brother than she had ever had. 

It was something Nina didn't like to think about too much. What Tenma meant to Johan.

If she thought about it too much, the same answer always came back to her, and it made her throat tight with such a sickening sense of guilt and regret.

Tenma had saved Johan's life. The life Nina herself had taken, or nearly, anyway. And Nina had forgotten Johan. She had forgotten he ever existed. 

Tenma had never done that. Tenma had never betrayed Johan, in spite of everything. 

She can't assume what it is that was going on inside her brother's head. She knows that. She can't ever really hope to understand him. But maybe that was it. Maybe that was why Johan felt so drawn to Tenma. 

Maybe Tenma was the one person whom Johan felt understood him at all. Understood what he felt, and saw.

She doesn't know. All she knows is Tenma would feel the need to come back home immediately if he heard the news about her brother. And what would happen after that, she has no idea.

She knows Johan would find out. She knows her brother would probably already know where Tenma was, even now. Just like she felt sure he probably had already found her. 

It's like Dieter's reading her mind when he decides to remind her of this.

“But we've gotta tell him somehow! What if Johan decides to go after him!? What if he tries to kill him!” He cries.

“He won't.” Nina says, and it's so automatic she surprises herself. She hadn't even thought about it. It had just slipped out, like she knew it to be true, somehow. She couldn't explain why. It was just something she felt so sure of suddenly. 

Johan wouldn't try to kill Tenma. Like she knew Johan wouldn't try to kill her. 

She wasn't even remotely sure about anyone else though, and the thought of that possibility, of Johan going on another killing spree, has her feeling sick to the stomach.

Dieter doesn't look convinced of her reassurances either, and Nina sighs, already feeling exhausted from it all.

“I'll try to get in touch with somebody over there to let him know.” She promises. “Okay?”

“Don't try. Do.” Dieter says, crossing his arms. “We've gotta tell Dr. Reichwein too. Man, he's gonna be upset.”

That was probably the world's biggest understatement.

Dr. Reichwein was terrified of Johan and what he was. Of what he was capable of. He had been strongly opposed to leaving Johan under such slack security conditions at the hospital, despite the doctor's being certain of his continuing comatose state, and despite that for the first year they had routinely had his wrist cuffed to the bed rail.

Nina knows as soon as he found out, the doctor was going to blow his top. She wouldn't be able to blame him for that either.

She closes her eyes, covering her face with her hands.

Oh Johan, Johan... she thinks dismally of him out there.

Johan, what's going to become of us...?

//

“It was lonely for you growing up, wasn't it?”

He can feel the falter of the man's hands as he's strapping his legs down. The short hesitation before he continues, not replying.

“Not that you didn't have friends. Well, you had friends, but they never really felt like real friends, am I right?” 

Again the man hesitates, his frame tensing.

“Stop talking.” He says, and Johan looks up at him with a furrowed brow.

He'd been studying this man for a few minutes. He was new. At least, new to Johan's detail. He didn't interact well with the other orderlies and nurses around him. Stood aloof from them. Never made eye contact. It wasn't that he was shy. Johan could see the resentment in him right away. The frustration. The man felt he was too good for this job. Felt he was too good to be taking orders of any kind. He felt annoyed and disgusted by what he thought was the mundane and frivolous stupidity of other people. No doubt the man thought of himself as a secret intellectual. Thought of himself as someone who had lofty and original thoughts. Was of a higher ideal. If only someone would recognize his superior talent and intellect.

Johan could do that for him.

The man begins to pull the strap's taught against his wrists. 

They were going to run electroshock treatment on him again today. The agony of it was overwhelming. Johan would scream his throat hoarse and crack his teeth, he knows, if they didn't force that piece of wood into his mouth before each session, pressing his tongue down. After they would lock him in that room with bright lights. At unpredictable, random times, they would feed a loud buzzing noise through that rooms speakers at ear splitting decimals, imitating the sound of the machine that delivered the electric shocks. It was meant to keep the test subjects in a state of high stress and anxiety. They would keep you awake like this for a period of 12, 13, 14 hours sometimes. Until you lost track. It was effective. Johan had been put through this more times than he can remember now. He always felt deeply sick at the end. Disoriented and physically weak, his thoughts fracturing and running away from him, his limbs refusing to work right. He often threw up during the period they had him in there, too, painful nausea turning his stomach, his eyes burning and dry from the unrelenting lights, and he would try to hide from them by pressing into a corner and burying his head underneath his arms, but it never really worked. Loud noises would cause him to jump and flinch away for days afterward. 

It was effective.

“I understand what that feels like.” Johan keeps talking, his voice soft and sad. “When no one understands what you see. It's lonely, but it also makes you angry. Right? Why can't people be smarter? It's frustrating how shallow people can be. The way they would rather distract themselves from having to use their brains. They just want to sit there and stare at mindless trash so they don't have to think, or put any effort in. It's so stupid, isn't it? I think it's stupid.”

The man glances down at him, frowning. Thinking. Johan has him.

“Well you ain't wrong about that kid.” He says, beginning to pull the strap across his forehead to keep his head in place. The electroshock always caused violent spams.

“I can tell you're different though.” Johan says. “Your smart. Really smart, actually. Smarter than all the other people in here. They don't see it, because they're not very bright. Or because they're intimidated by you. That's what being intelligent does. It scares people away because they don't want to have to face the fact there's someone better than they are. That's why I said I think you were probably lonely growing up. Because even though you had friends, none of them really understood you, and eventually they stopped wanting to be around you because they felt bad about themselves when you were around. Even if they didn't understand why, they could sense it. You're being superior to them.”

The man hesitates in what he's doing again, his hands stopping as he looks down at Johan once more, really regarding him this time. Johan can see the pride in his eyes. The growing confidence. His ego's stroked, getting bigger.

“Heh. You're pretty smart yourself, huh kid? What's your name anyway?”

Johan smiles at him.

“Johan.” He answers. “But they don't like us to have names in here. So I'm not supposed to tell.”

“You told me though.” The man says, and Johan looks away, eyes going distant.

“... You won't tell anyone though. Right?” He asks, his voice small, almost pleading. “I'll get in trouble if they find out.”

The man scoffs.

“I wouldn't tell these bozos jack shit, even if they asked me directly. Don't worry about that.”

“Thank you.” Johan looks back at him, his face relieved. Hopeful. A moment later he can feel his expression drop, brow crumpling with stress. The man frowns, standing up straighter. 

“What is it?” He asks.

“... Nothing. I'm just a little scared.” Johan answers after a pause. 

The man continues looking at him, his hands slipping away from the straps as he steps back.

“... I'm sorry kid. I don't want to have to do this to you. It's just...”

“I know. It's your job.” Johan tells him, looking away again. “I know it's not your fault, I just...”

He trails off, and the man shifts.

“What?” He asks after a moment and Johan looks back to him.

“I get really scared before the treatment, and I... I need to use the restroom. I'm embarrassed I'll soil myself if I can't use the restroom first. But nobody ever listens to me. I guess because I'm just a little boy. I wish somebody would just...”

“Understand?” The man supplies, and Johan looks up at him with bright eyes. As if the man had come to that conclusion himself. 

“Yes.” He says, hopeful. “But you understand. Don't you?”

The man nods.

“Yeah.” He says. I do.”

Johan smiles up at him again. He giggles.

“I knew you would. You're too smart for this place. You shouldn't even have to work for these people. I wish you were the one in charge.”

“Pff, far as I'm concerned I already am.” The man announces.

Johan looks at him with a puzzled expression.

“Really?” He asks, and the man grins, slapping his own chest.

“I'm the one in charge of hooking you up to this thing. I could decide to just let you up from this table right now if I wanted. Nobody could stop me, if I wanted to do that.”

“... I guess that's true.” Johan says, voice filled with a kind of wonderment. “You are in charge, aren't you?”

The man's grin widens, eyes burning with pride and arrogance.

“Damn straight I am. I could do anything I want.”

Johan smiles at him like he's special. Like he's a great man.

“You know what, I think I will.” The man announces with determined certainty. “I'll let you walk around for a few minutes. Use a bathroom. How about that?”

“... You won't get in trouble?” Johan asks, sounding scared, he knows. 

“Hell no!” The man assures him. “Even if they try to say something, I'll just talk my way outta it. These clowns are so easy to mess with.”

Johan giggles.

“You're right. It was silly of me to doubt you.”

The man continues grinning, pride twisting his features into smugness, his voice taking on an air of consoling patronization.

“It's alright Johan. You're smarter than most of the people in this place. Here, I'll just get you outta this thing and then we'll go find a bathroom.”

He waits as the man loosens the straps, patient. Unhurried.

He waits as he'd picked up by the man underneath his arms and lowered to the floor, on his feet, the man continuing to chatter away about something or other. Likely about his own brilliance and what a fool he'll make of everyone. But Johan is no longer listening. He doesn't need to. The man doesn't notice as Johan slips away from his side, starting toward the array of medical tools, recklessly left out on one of the room's counters. He picks up a scalpel and thinks it will do fine.

He's back at the man's side without his having left ever being noticed, and holds the scalpel between his fingers, pressed to the inside of his palm and wrist.

“Excuse me Sir.” He says. The man continues talking, not noticing, and Johan repeats himself more loudly. The man stops, glancing down at him. Johan makes himself look unsure, shy, and he waves the man to bend closer, as if to whisper something into his ear. 

The man bends, and Johan waits until he's close enough before he swings up, slashing the scalpel hard across the man's throat.

There's a look of shocked disbelief on the man's face a moment. He doesn't understand what's just happened yet. He sputters, and blood comes thick from his lips. He reaches up, trembling hands, grasping at his throat, forcing the wound to part, and thicker blood comes pressing through his fingers.

Johan steps back, and turns, making his way towards the room's exit. He hears the man's body collapse to the ground, and doesn't look back.

He has to get out of here. He has to find Anna. Get her somewhere safe...

//

He hadn't made it far, that day. He hadn't really planned to. Had only needed to see the layout of the floor he was on for when he did decide to leave. Figure out where to go to get back up top, to where the other boys were kept. Time was important then. 

He had hated Kinderheim 511. The experiments they had done on the children there. The abuse.

He understood now it was those experiments which had confused him about his and his sisters memories. Which had made him believe it was him who had been taken that day from their home. Him who was brought to the Red Rose Mansion. 

He remembers a sick fear he had felt, that he would forget Anna then. That he would lose all memory of her.

He hadn't. He had been able to keep them from taking her from him. But everything else... he hadn't been able to remember his life at all before arriving at that place. 

He sits in front of the window of the hotel room he's rented, watching the outside.

He thinks of Anna, and Dr. Tenma. 

Dr. Tenma... 

Dr. Tenma hadn't shot him, in the end. But Johan knew... he knew still Tenma could see what he saw. Had seen it. It had been there, in the doctor's eyes. That scenery of a doomsday. That world of nothing. Dr. Tenma had seen it, at last. 

They were alike, he and Dr. Tenma. Johan knew, from the beginning. Even Anna hadn't been able to see it. But Tenma could. All people were equal. Only Tenma was delusional about the thing that made them so. Not life. Only death. It was death that made them equal. Johan had tried to make him understand. The same ending to every story. 

Only still the doctor hadn't killed him. Instead restored him to life once more. 

Johan smiles to himself with the thought.

Dr. Tenma felt like a father to him. He hadn't been lying, when he'd told the doctor that. Like General Wolf. He had wanted to make them understand. To see. People suffered because they struggled. They killed one another to avoid the same fate. Inevitable. Inexorable. Their fear driving them faster towards it. Death was an abstract concept to them. Something beyond their ability to imagine. That drove their fear higher still. No way to envision the end, for them.

Johan saw it so many times though. Knew it. Felt it. Saw it still.

He thinks about dying. He thinks about killing himself.

He glances away from the window finally, standing and moving towards the room's bed.

His head hurts. He's been getting terrible migraines, since he woke up. Vicious, cracking pain that makes him go blind sometimes. Dizziness plagues him too. More than a few times he's lost his balance and fallen. It happened once while he was out walking the streets. So many people came rushing up to him, asking him if he was alright, helping him get back to his feet. 

He pulls the covers back and gets into the bed. He'll sleep, for a while. 

When he wakes, he'll go out, and think about his sister. Go stand outside her home and watch for her to appear.


	3. Chapter 3

“You're Dieter, aren't you?”

Dieter stops, and turns at the soft voice behind him.

He's never seen Johan in person before, but he knows him immediately, and for a moment the shock of seeing him this close is like having all the air sucked out of his lungs.

He's fucking unbelievably good looking. Literally unbelievably. He doesn't look real, Dieter thinks. Like it isn't possible for anyone to be that beautiful. And beautiful is the word Dieter would use. Not handsome. Beautiful. 

It's so bizarre. He looks like Nina. They have almost exactly the same face. But there's something else going on with Johan that Nina doesn't have. Some sort of depth to his features that goes beyond her extreme prettiness. 

He has the perfection of a statue, Dieter realizes. No flaws. No blemishes. No asymmetrical features. His skin is so white and so smooth, it looks like glowing porcelain. Like it would be cold to the touch. His hair nearly the same color, nearly as white, thick and soft looking. Dieter notices how smooth his brow ridge is. How it nearly seems to not exist, it's so flat and straight, tapering down into eyes which seem set the perfect distance into his face, and up to form an equally smooth, high and flat forehead. His nose isn't either too big, or too small, and as perfectly straight and Roman as you could ever imagine, his lips perfectly sized, like a little pout, over amazingly straight, medium sized white teeth, and incredible, high cheekbones. His eyes are shockingly blue and clear, like if you stared hard enough into them, you could see to the very depths of whatever was beneath.

It's unsettling, and intimidating, and after a moment Dieter has to look away, a kind of bizarre shame clamping down on him suddenly, like he hasn't earned the right to look upon something so perfect. 

Why's it's this he notices before registering any kind of fear is beyond him. It's fucking Johan. He's a fucking serial killer. Standing only a few feet from him. Christ.

The next thing he notices, and it's nearly as strange as his beauty, is how small Johan is.

He's... short. Dieter doesn't think he's any taller than Nina, in fact. Nina is tall for a girl, of course. About 5'6”. But that's about what Johan is too, just eying him. He's at least an inch shorter than Dieter himself. And at least three inches shorter than Tenma. And skinny. Really skinny. Hell, he looks like he probably weighs about as much as his sister too. 

It's no wonder he'd been able to go around posing as her the way he had.

Only despite that, his presence is overwhelming, and Dieter finds himself unable to move away. Unable to stop himself from glancing back at Johan again and again. Almost like he's mesmerized by his beauty and the weight of his being. He wants to look at him. Wants, he thinks with abrupt dismay, to be near him.

He needed to get away. Right now.

Only Johan is looking at him with such unwavering steadiness, the expression on his face so calm and quiet, and he's the most strange, unreal person Dieter has ever seen in his life.

Johan smiles at him, a disarming, really sweet expression, and Dieter knows he should leave right now. He needs to get back home, or... or tell the police, or...

“You live with my sister.” Johan says. “And were Dr. Tenma's constant companion for a long while.”

Dieter doesn't know how to answer, his voice seeming to get stuck in his throat, and Johan finally looks away, his eyes seeming to go distant as he stares out across the bustling area around them. Dieter can see the eyes of the people walking by going momentarily wide as their gazes fall on Johan, before they look quickly away, feeling, Dieter imagines, like him, somehow unworthy of looking upon a person so physically perfect.

If only they knew how fucked up Johan really was, he thinks.

“Are you gonna try and kill me?” He finally manages to get out, and Johan looks back to him, his face fallen into an unreadable, expressionless mask. “O-or Nina? 'Cause if you're gonna try to hurt her, or Dr. Tenma o... or anyone, I'm gonna have to s-stop you...”

Johan regards him for what seems forever, his eyes unbearably intense and clear in their focus, his face impossible to know. Jesus, he was weird to look at.

“... No.” He says, his voice lilting and soft. “I would never hurt her. I'm not going to hurt... any of you.”

For a moment, Dieter feels a spike of abrupt anger, and the words come pouring out without him thinking.

“Why the hell should I believe you?!” He snaps.

Johan blinks, his expression otherwise unchanging.

“You shouldn't.” He says simply, unaffected and calm as ever, and something about it only makes Dieter feel angrier. Makes him feel suddenly helpless and scared. “But it's the truth. How is Nina? How is my sister?”

Johan is looking at him with an open, almost kind expression now, and despite everything Dieter knows about him, despite the fact he knows he can't trust him... he feels suddenly disarmed, and at ease, and doesn't even realize he's answering the question until after the words have left his mouth.

“She's good. She's happy.” He says, and Johan's eyes seem to gleam, his smile soft and almost sad. It seems so genuine, and Dieter can't tell whether it is or not. Doesn't know what he should think. 

“And Dr. Tenma?” Johan continues. “I hear he's back from his overseas duty. How is he?”

“... He... he's good too.” Dieter answers, even as a voice in his head is screaming for him to shut up. To not tell Johan anything about them. Only Johan seems so sincere in his questioning, his expression so unhidden, and Dieter just keeps talking. “He just got back today, so he's...”

He trails off, realizing what he's doing finally, and that same spike of anger returns.

Johan continues to smile at him in that same disarming, sweet way.

“I'm glad.” He says, before looking away again, his eyes becoming hooded and distant once more. “... They should be happy.”

It's been nearly three months since the police informed them of Johan's escape. Since then, none of them had heard a word about it, other then that they hadn't been able to find him, and Dieter feels slightly sick at the thought that he's been hanging around this entire time without any of them realizing it.

“You've been watching us.” He says without really meaning to, and Johan nods vaguely, still looking away.

“For how long?” Dieter demands, and he doesn't know where he's getting his boldness. He's scared out of his mind. 

Johan doesn't say anything for what seems nearly a full minute, and Dieter is about to snap at him again for an answer, when his quiet voice again comes.

“You as well Dieter? Are you happy?” He says, instead of answering the question.

For a moment, Dieter's mind goes blank, not expecting the question, and Johan turns to look at him once more, his eyes fixed and intense on Dieter's face.

Dieter doesn't know what it is, what it is he's feeling. This overwhelming, almost otherworldly pull when Johan looks at him. Dieter guess he it's... charisma... or something like charisma. He doesn't know what it is. He's never experienced anything like it. Only he finds himself answering again, as if he had no control over his own ability to decide.

“Y-yeah, yes, I'm happy.” He stammers out.

Johan's eyes are hooded again, that incredibly serene, calm look on his face once more, and he looks away, nodding almost as if to himself.

“That makes me glad as well, Dieter.” He says.

“Why do you want Johan?” Dieter finally manages, annoyed and frustrated. “I know it's not just to ask how I am. What do you want? What are you planning?”

“... Planning?” Johan repeats, and his voice sounds distant now, like he's talking to himself. “There's nothing I'm planning... at all.”

“Bullshit.” Dieter hisses, tired of this game, whatever it is. He should probably run away. Run back home and tell Nina, and Tenma. They would know what to do. They would...

“No, I'm...” Johan starts, but seems to stop abruptly, and Dieter watches, confused as Johan steps suddenly back from him. His hands lift up to his head, his passive face at once seeming to screw up in discomfort, and he turns from Dieter, taking another step away.

Dieter's eyes go wide then as Johan seems all at once to lose his balance, his sense of distance seeming to vanish as he takes another step and his feet go all funny under him, his knees buckling and legs collapsing. 

He goes down like a sack of bricks, falling hard against his side and shoulder, his head nearly striking the pavement, and Dieter doesn't think as he rushes forward, alarm forcing him into action.

He's at Johan's side in a moment, on his knees and with his hands underneath Johan's shoulders, lifting him up. Through the material of his suite jacket, Dieter can feel just how bony he is underneath, and Johan's head lolls to the side, his eyes half lidded and glazed looking now. 

What the hell was wrong with him? 

“He is alright?!” Someone passing by asks, stopping, and when Dieter looks around he sees a small crowd of people beginning to form, all with concerned looks on their faces. 

Dieter doesn't know what to do. 

Johan seems completely out of it all of a sudden, his face going from it's usual, pale white to an abruptly sickly color, sweat actually breaking out on his forehead. 

It would be so easy to call the cops right now. Or to even have Johan taken to a hospital and from there they would realize quickly enough who he was and call the police themselves.

He should do it. He should tell someone right now to call the police, or an ambulance. He should. Only... 

Only he's looking down at Johan now, and Johan is trying to say something, trying weakly to pull out of Dieter's hold, unable to do so, and he looks so painfully young and lost, and he thinks of Nina. Thinks of those nights he could hear her through the walls of the house, in the bedroom next to his, crying. The way he would catch her at times during the day with tears standing in her eyes, and she would try to wipe them away when she thought no one had seen. 

The way she would talk about her brother... and there was always this awful sadness in her voice then. This terrible longing and regret, and Dieter had always been able to tell how much she missed him. How much she loved him, despite everything. Despite all Johan had done to her. To all of them.

And in the next instant he's telling the man who had stopped and asked if Johan was alright to please call a taxi.

“He's my brother.” Dieter lies, and he has no idea why he's doing this. “He gets these dizzy spells sometimes and I just need to get him home.”

The man agrees without hesitation, running off to a payphone down the street and making the call, while Dieter continues to lie to the group around them, telling them Johan's alright, he just needs a little air, just needs to get home, until finally the people seem to accept it and begin to disperse.

“Let me go Dieter.” Johan says, but his voice is weak, barely a whisper, and his efforts to pull free are useless.

“Be quiet and just sit still.” Dieter shoots back, his own voice lowered, laying his arm across Johan's chest. “If you make a scene the cop's will come, and then you'll be arrested.”

“You can't bring me to your home.” Johan says. “Let me go Dieter.”

“Like hell I can't. Just shut up already, would you?”

“Dieter...”

“Besides, I don't think you can walk. You need to see a doctor or something. Lucky for you we have a really good one at our house.”

Johan starts to say something else, but the man from before comes running up then, telling Dieter he's called a taxi, that it should arrive in a few minutes. Dieter thanks him and politely turns him down when he offers to stay with him and Johan.

“... Anna's going to be upset.” Johan murmurs, and Dieter looks down at him, confused.

Anna? Who the hell was Anna?

There's no time to ask though as the taxi comes pulling up a little down the street and Dieter lifts Johan into a sitting position, supporting him as best he can.

“Come on Johan. We gotta get up. Come on.”

Dieter stands, pulling Johan up with him. Only Johan's feet are completely unsteady under him, and Dieter finds himself having to shoulder his entire weight, moving them slowly down the sidewalk, towards the waiting taxi.

He's relieved when the driver gets out of the car to come and help, and Dieter thanks him as he assists in getting Johan into the back seat. Still, Dieter can't help the fear he feels that Johan is going to do something, or say something and blow the whole thing. Doesn't even know why he's so scared. Johan should be in prison. 

Maybe he thinks he'll get in trouble, if he's found out.

But Johan doesn't say anything, and Dieter crawls into the back seat next to him, telling the driver the address of his home.

Johan is quiet during the ride, and Dieter finds himself constantly looking over at him, watching him with a strange mixture of apprehension and admiration.

Even appearing ill, he was still somehow beautiful to look at. Still so… perfect.

Johan leans his head against the glass of the passenger side window, his eyes closing. He looks unsteady, like he might throw up or something, Dieter thinks, his blonde hair falling forward over his eyes, disheveled and mussed.

Dieter notices for the first time how impeccably dressed Johan is, despite it all. He’s wearing an extremely expensive looking black sweater, probably some kind of wool, the sleeves rolled up to his elbows, exposing the same porcelain white skin of his forearms. If Dieter looks closely, he can just make out the fine hairs there, so white they’re almost invisible. He’s wearing finely cut slacks which only seem to accentuate his slim hips, and if Dieter were to say there was one giveaway that he was a guy and not a girl, it would be that. That, and the angles of his face are just a little too sharp, not quite soft enough for a girl.

“Try not to pass out.” Dieter says, suddenly remembering what Dr. Tenma had once told him about head trauma. “I don’t think you hit your head, but you might have, and you could have a concussion. Dr. Tenma says you’re not supposed to fall asleep if you have one.”

He sees Johan’s lips curl slightly up at their edges, a faint smile.

“Is that what Dr. Tenma says?” He asks distantly.

“Yeah.” Dieter answers. “So don’t pass out. Alright?”

“… Alright.” Johan answers, and it’s weird how agreeable he’s being, Dieter thinks.

God, he hopes he’s doing the right thing. Or at least, he hopes Nina will think so.

Everyone else…

He doesn’t really want to think about what they’ll say.

Dieter wonders morbidly if Johan has killed anyone since escaping the hospital, and almost blurts the question before stopping himself, remembering the driver.

The ride is silent then, and awkward. 

The driver asks if Johan is alright, and Dieter lies again, telling him he’s fine, telling him their father is a doctor and he just needed to get Johan back home.

He sees Johan’s eyes come open at that, staring ahead with that same, hooded expression, his mouth set into a straight, motionless line, and Dieter is struck once more with that unnerved feeling. It seemed unnatural, for a person to be so… serene.

It isn’t long before they arrive at the house, and Dieter takes a deep breath, beginning to reach into his pockets to pay the meter.

He’s stopped by Johan’s hand on his wrist, and Dieter starts, looking up and seeing Johan looking right at him.

“Let me.” He says in that high, sweet voice of his, and Dieter can’t help but notice how soft Johan’s skin is. As soft as it looks, and just like he’d suspected, cooler than seemed normal.

Dieter doesn’t know what to say as Johan retrieves his own wallet and when he opens it, Dieter can see an outrageously thick stack of bills inside, what must be hundreds of marks.

Casually Johan pulls out fifty and hands it to the driver.

“Keep it.” He tells the driver as he begins to sputter about change.

Dieter feels suddenly overcome by a need to get Johan out of the car and into the house. Off the street.

“Uh, th-thanks… thanks for helping.” He stammers out, beginning to open the car door, grabbing hold of Johan by the arm to pull him after.

“Do you need help!?” The driver calls after them.

“N-no! No, we’re good! Thanks! Thank you!” Dieter rushes out in reply, dragging Johan behind him and slamming the car door shut.

Johan stumbles and Dieter catches him, slinging Johan's arm over his shoulder to keep him up.

“Thank you.” Johan mutters softly, unfailingly polite and gentle voiced. 

If he feels any shame at his current condition, he's showing none of it, Dieter thinks.

Slowly they make their way up the front steps of Dieter's home, and silently he hopes nobody's home yet, though he knows how unlikely that is.

It was Saturday, and Nina usually spent her weekends at the house. At least, this early. Sometimes, in the evening, she would go out with some of her school friends. But it was only just past three now. She would probably be home.

Christ, what was she going to say when she saw her brother? 

What was she going to do?

Dieter tries not to panic as he reaches into his pant pocket and rummages a moment for his keys. He only realizes he's holding his breath as he hears the lock click open, and he lets it out with a loud whistle past his teeth.

“Are you frightened?” He hears Johan ask beside him and a shot of defensive anger spikes through him.

“No.” He lies, even as he knows it's pointless to try and fool Johan.

Still, Johan says nothing, remaining silent as Dieter helps to carry him past the threshold of the door, into the house.

“Just... wait here a minute, will you?” He asks, helping Johan into the chair situated beside the front door. 

“Of course.” Johan replies calmly, somehow still managing to look graceful as he falls into the seat.

Dieter isn't at all sure it's a good idea to leave him alone, even for just a few minutes, but... he needs to go see who's in the house, if anyone, and try to figure out how the hell he's going to explain bringing Johan here.

He glances back at Johan one last time, watching a moment as he leans his head back against the wall, eyes closed. He's just an unbelievably good looking in profile as head on, and Dieter has to physically force himself to turn away from staring and head farther into the house.

It doesn't take long for him to find the house isn't empty at all. He comes across Nina in the kitchen and feels his heart leap into his throat.

“Uhuh... h-hi... uh, hi N-Nina...” he stammers stupidly.

She turns from where she's boiling a pot of tea on the stove, her smile bright and warm as she looks up at him.

Fuck, this was a really bad idea.

“Oh, hey Dieter! You're home early!” She greets him, happy and sweet as ever. “I wasn't expecting you for another couple hours. I was actually going to make dinner for everyone before they got back, but now that you're here, I can whip you up a quick sandwich or something...”

She trails off as Dieter fidgets. He knows he's letting his nerves show, but he doesn't know how to conceal them. Doesn't even know if there would be any point. Johan was sitting on the foyer. Johan. There was no getting around it. He just had to tell her. It was just...

“What is it?” Nina asks, her tone suddenly serious, and Dieter should have known he couldn't fool her anyway. She was too smart. Just like her brother. “Dieter...” she starts again, taking a step near him now, plainly aware something was up. “What is it? Did something happen?”

Dieter bites his lip. He's having a hard time even looking at her.

“Kind of...” he says. His heart is pounding in his chest. Why the hell did he put himself in this position anyway?

“Kind of?” Nina repeats. “What does that mean? Dieter, you're scaring me. Tell me what's going on.”

“I met Johan.” He blurts without really meaning to.

For a moment, there isn't any reaction from Nina at all. She just stands there, staring blankly at him.

Only slowly he watches as her face begins to grow visibly tight, her eyes widening and skin growing pale. 

“What?” She finally asks, and her voice is trembling.

Dieter swallows, feeling dizzy and a little sick.

“I... I met Johan. He... I met him on the street. He came up to me and...”

“Did he hurt you?! What did he do?!” Nina cuts him off, her voice growing suddenly frantic. Terrified.

“W-what? No. No, he just...”

“He came up to you?! Did he say what he wanted?! What did he say to you Dieter?!”

“Nothing! He didn't... he didn't want anything I don't think. He just... just asked about you. He wanted to know how you were and then he... he...”

“What? What did he do Dieter?!” Nina is flat out panicking now and Dieter doesn't know what to say to calm her down.

“He... he had some sort of dizzy spell or something! He collapsed and I didn't know what to do, so I... I...” he starts, the words pouring out of him in a rush.

Nina stares back at him with wide eyes, and Dieter knows in that moment he doesn't even have to say it. She already knows.

“What did you do Dieter?” She asks anyway, her voice suddenly, unsettelingly calm.

Dieter swallows, thick and painful, his mouth going dry.

“... I brought him here.” Dieter says, voice coming out a whisper. “He's waiting in the foyer, right now.”


	4. Chapter 4

He can hear Anna's voice talking to the boy.

The words are indistinct, but he can hear the tension in them. The panic. 

That emotion interests him in other people. Fear. Panic. Terror. It's interesting, the way those emotions make people act. How it suddenly reveals who they really are, underneath all their learned, social decorum. 

He's never wanted to see that emotion in Anna though. He's never wanted her to be afraid of him. Of anyone. 

He knows she's afraid now because of him being here. She's afraid of him.

Something in his chest feels tight at the realization. Painful restriction. 

He doesn't realize he's rubbing at his chest until he hears the voices of his sister and the boy taper off.

He should probably go.

His eyes feel heavy and irritated with exhaustion. He hadn't planned for any of this. Hadn't planned to meet the boy. Hadn't planned to be overtaken by another of his dizzy spells while talking to him. 

He hadn't even needed to try, and yet here he was. Anna was there, in the next room. He could simply go to her. Stand in front of her. See her close to him again.

He had wanted to set her free from him though. Had wanted to die so she could finally live. 

That had been his plan. To give her that last thing.

Fate, though, had again intervened.

Sometimes it seemed to him he couldn't die. 

He wonders if that's true. If it is, he wonders why.

Maybe he really was a devil.

He hears steps drawing nearer from the hallway, and he sits up. He looks, and knows someone is standing there, just out of his line of sight. Knows it's his sister.

“... I can go, if you prefer.” He calls out.

There's no answer for long seconds.

He stands. His legs feel weak. The room turns too quickly, and for a moment he feels as though he may throw up. 

“Johan!”

Someone's hands on him suddenly, grasping his arm tightly, and he realizes he's being held up, realizes he'd nearly fallen again.

He looks up, and it's Anna standing there beside him. Anna who's got her hands on him, keeping him from falling.

He can't really remember when it last was he stood so close to her.

How perfect she is though. That he remembers. 

Her face is his face. No difference, really. Except in Anna's eyes. Her eyes are bright. Living. Still young. Innocent. Hurt, as they look back at him. Fearful. Concerned. Concerned for him. 

He wonders how it is she could feel that at all for him. After everything...

He smiles at her. It just comes. 

“Hello Anna.” He says.

Her eyes fill with tears which pour down her face and she looks away from him without letting go, hiding her face against her shoulder. A heavy sob is muffled against her sweater. 

Something sharp and sudden stabs inside his chest, and his smile drops away.

No, that isn't what should be happening. She shouldn't be crying.

He stares at her, and isn't sure what he should do.

“Anna...” he starts, and she shakes her head violently, still hiding her face against her shoulder.

“Damn you Johan.” She says, her voice trembling, almost too soft to hear. “Damn you.”

He looks at her, and thinks maybe this is where he's supposed to hug her. Like when they were children together. He used to hug her then, and it always seemed to make her happy.

He thinks doing so now may only make things worse, though. She was angry. She was angry at him. He supposes she had been since that night, when he had shot the Lieberts. 

She had never understood the reasons why. She couldn't, really. That was alright. He didn't expect her to. He didn't really want her to, even.

His head still feels light, his legs trembling beneath him. He can feel Anna's arms shaking, trying to hold him up, and he thinks she won't be able to keep him standing much longer.

“Anna, I think maybe I should sit.” He says, and at last she looks up from her shoulder, blinking the tears out of her eyes as she stares into his face. “The room won't be still.” He goes on, and her eyes widen, an almost panicked look coming over her features.

“Oh God, h-here... I'm... I'm sorry! Here, sit down!”

She's helping to lower him down into the chair again, grasping tight to his arms, her nails digging into his skin through the material of his sweater. 

He can't remember the last time his sister touched him. 

He has an impression of her hand in his, her skin warm and soft. He thinks maybe she had held his hand while he'd been in a coma. 

He can't remember before then. When they were children, he knows. That's all he knows.

Her hands are still on him, her fingers gripping tight over his forearms as she leans down, looking him in the eyes. Her face is so close to his. 

“D-do you need anything? A glass of water or...?”

He shakes his head.

“I'm fine, thank you.” He tells her, and his eyelids droop closed. He feels exhausted.

“What's wrong?” Anna asks him, and her voice sounds distant. “Johan, what's wrong with you?”

“Nothing.” He says. “Don't think of it.”

“What? How can I not think of it? Johan, how long have you been messed up like this? Have you even seen anyone?!”

His sister seems frightened. Frantic, even. Not for herself, it seems. For him. That's strange. People were afraid of him, always. If not at first, they learned to be, eventually.

Anna would have been afraid of him by now, if ever she were going to be.

He leans his head back against the wall, his eyelids feeling too heavy to keep open, and so he closes them.

“Johan... Johan!” His sisters hands are on his shoulders again, shaking him violently, and his eyes come open, her face swimming into view, though it's blurred now, not focused.

“Don't go to sleep. Jesus, I... I'm calling Dr. Tenma. Keep your eyes open. Dieter! Come here and talk to him. Don't let him go to sleep. I need to call Dr. Tenma.”

“Don't be afraid Anna.” He says. “Should I call you Nina? Do you want to be called Nina?”

She looks at him strangely, almost a look of surprise, before the expression is quickly gone and she turns away from him, the boy coming and taking her place.

“You need to try and stay awake.” The boy tells him.

He hardly hears him though, his attention focused on Anna's voice as it speaks rapidly into the phone she's holding. She sounds far away and urgent.

“No, he... he's here. Here at the house. I know... I know, I can't... listen, there's no time for that. There's something really wrong with him... No, I don't know. He seems really dizzy and weak. Dieter said he collapsed outside and that's why he brought him here. No... No, he said... no, he said nothing happened. Please Kenzo, you've got to come and look at him. I'm really afraid something's wrong... Okay... okay. Thank you. Thank you. Okay. Okay, we'll see you then. Okay, bye.”

“Hey... hey, are you listening?” Dieter snaps in his face and his attention goes back to the boy. “Don't fall asleep!”

He blinks and everything seems so strange. Almost like it isn't real. Almost like those times, in Kinderheim, when they'd pumped him so full of drugs he hadn't known what day it was, what time. Hadn't, after a while, even really known who he was anymore.

He supposes he'd never known that, really.

“Tenma said he'll just be about ten minutes.” Anna is there again, bending down, and her face is close again. Right there. If he reaches up, he'll touch her. Know she's really there. “Johan, hey, can you hear me?”

He nods. He can hear her. He can always hear her.

He wonders if Dr. Tenma will call the police. 

Likely not. His moral obligation wouldn't allow that. At least, not until the doctor was sure he was alright. After that though, it seemed he might. 

He would likely have to find a way to leave, if that were to happen.

He wonders what Dr. Tenma will say, when he gets here. What he'll look like. He wonders if the doctor will look at him in horror, like so many times before. Or with pity. Maybe both.

He knows he doesn't look quite so sure as maybe he once did. He knows he looks weak, and ill. 

He knows he was never very strong though to begin with. His body was always thin and almost frail. He knows he isn't big. He probably hardly outweighs Anna.

He knows how to speak to people. He knows how to make them listen. How to make them do what he wants. He's always known how to do that. 

That, he supposes, made him seem strong. 

“What are you feeling? Are you dizzy? Do you feel sleepy?” His sister continues questioning him.

“Yes.” He answers. “To both those things. But I'm alright.”

“Oh God, okay. Just... just hang in there. Tenma will be here soon. Dieter, can you go and get him a glass of water please?”

“Right.” Dieter says, disappearing into what must be the kitchen.

“How are you Anna?” He asks his sister. “Should I call you Nina?” 

Again his sister looks at him as though she doesn't understand the question. And then she frowns, her expression becoming pained. Sad, he thinks.

“... If you want, you can call me Anna.” She tells him. “And... I'm alright. I'm good, actually. I've been good.”

He smiles. He feels something like relief.

“I'm glad.” He tells her. “I'm glad, Anna.”

“Johan...? Johan, don't fall asleep!”

It's becoming difficult to focus now though, the weight of his lids too much, and his eyes slip closed without him really meaning them to.

“Johan, PLEASE, oh God...”

He thinks he can feel someone's hands on him, shaking him violently, and Anna's voice, like a far away dream, frantic and sobbing as it calls out to him over, and over, and over...

He remembers that too now. Poor Anna. 

He would protect her...

Oh, he would always try...

//

Kenzo's heart feels like it's going to explode out of his chest.

He thinks, for a moment, wildly, that he must be hallucinating.

Johan is there. He's right there. Looking back at him. Looking up at him with those same, unreadable eyes. The bluest eyes he'd ever seen, and he looks like an angel, and so, so horribly young, and Kenzo still can't believe. He still can't believe this boy is a killer, even as he knows it with certainty.

He's as beautiful as ever, Kenzo thinks, only his physicians brain sees all the things that are also wrong.

He looks, if at all possible, even paler than usual, and Kenzo doesn't at all miss the tremor which works its way steadily through the boy's entire frame, most pronouncedly in his thin hands. His eyes are almost glassy, compared with the disturbing clearness Kenzo remembers from before, and there are dark, heavy circles marring his otherwise perfect skin underneath his eyes, like he hasn't been sleeping at all. His hair, too, is thick with sweat, beads of it gathering along his hairline, threatening to slip down his temples.

Despite all that, he still manages to appear somehow ethereal, and that in itself is enough to remind Kenzo of how terrifying Johan really is. There remained, as ever, something almost unnatural about the boy.

“Hello, Dr. Tenma.” Johan says to him, his voice soft and sweet and there's a tremor working through it too, just barely heard beneath the surface, and he's human, Kenzo knows. In the face of that physical perfection and brilliant mind, everything else about him the doctor knows, he's human.

Kenzo kneels in front of him. He can feel Nina standing just over his shoulder, watching. He can feel her anxiety and fear. 

She loves her brother. Despite it all. She loves him as much now as she did when they were children together, and Kenzo knows that too.

The panic in her voice when she'd called him. At first, he'd thought it was fear for herself. For Dieter. But no. It had been for her brother. 

Kenzo had been ready to call the police the moment she'd hung up. He'd had his finger poised over the buttons on his receiver, ready to dial.

He still isn't sure why he hadn't.

Maybe the fear of betrayal. Of his friends, people who had become like family to him, leaving him, because he would have betrayed their trust. 

Maybe because, as a doctor, he could never forget his oath to never do harm. And giving Johan to the police would do the boy harm. 

He doesn't know.

Later, maybe, after he'd made sure Johan is alright.

He doesn't think he is, looking at him. 

“Johan, take my hands.” He orders the boy, holding his own out.

Johan's face is impassive, that same, vague smile barely touching his lips, and without words, he lifts his hands and takes gentle hold of Kenzo's own. His skin is cold like porcaliene. 

“Now I want you to squeeze down on my fingers as hard as you can. Okay?” Kenzo tells him.

Johan keeps looking at him, and it's a struggle not to look away, watching back as the boy nods, and not for the first time, Kenzo takes note of how elegant he is. How graceful his movements. It's a stark contrast to how he can feel Johan's hands shaking over his own.

Johan squeezes, and his grip is pathetically weak. 

“Squeeze as hard as you can.” He repeats.

“I am, Dr. Tenma.” Johan tells him, and his voice is still perfectly quiet and calm.

A spike of concern works through Kenzo's stomach. Behind him, he can hear Nina shift, a trembling breath escaping past her lips.

“He keeps falling asleep. I had to shake him awake just before you arrived.” She tells him, and Kenzo's concern grows.

He nods.

“Okay, now hold out your arms, like this.” He demonstrates, holding his own arms up in front of himself, bent at the elbows. 

Johan imitates him without trouble.

“Now try to stop me from pushing your arms together.” He instructs as he takes hold of the boy's wrists.

He begins pushing inward, and he can feel Johan trying to resist, but like his grip had been, the attempt is pitiful and useless as Kenzo easily forces his arms together.

He performs a few more tests, asking the boy to follow his finger with his eyes, taking out his pen light and watching to see how well Johan's pupils are dilating. 

He asks Johan if he's been having headaches, and Johan looks at him with knowing, otherworldly eyes.

“Yes, Dr. Tenma.” He answers. “Migraines.”

By the end of it all, it's more than obvious that there's something very wrong, and Kenzo can't even say he's surprised.

“I'm going to need to do an MRI and Cat scan.” He says dimly, pushing himself up to standing.

Nina looks devastated, looking up at him, her hands twisting and pulling at the material of her shirt, her eyes bright with threatening tears.

“Is he...” she starts, and she stops herself, and Kenzo knows she doesn't want to give voice to her thoughts.

“I can't say until I've taken proper scans what's going on. But he might be suffering a hemorage.”

“Oh, God...” Nina nearly sobs.

“A hemorage? Like, what, a brain bleed?” Dieter asks, and Kenzo gives him a warning glance. He's grateful that Dieter seems to get the message.

And then he looks at Johan, who's face remains as emotionless as ever. There's no fear there at all. No anything, really. He looks unnaturally calm.

“We... we can't bring him to a public hospital. He'll be arrested if we do that.” Nina starts after a moment of gathering herself together.

Kenzo bites his lip, trying to think. It would be best if Johan were taken back into custody. It would be better for all of them.

He wonders then what would happen to Johan, if he were put in prison.

He used to wonder the same, before. What if's rattling through his mind. What if Johan hadn't been shot in that small, mountain village? What if he'd never fallen into a coma? What if instead he'd been taken by the police, and put in prison? What would happen to someone like Johan in prison?

Kenzo knows people often thought of him a naive, but he wasn't. Choosing to look at things positively didn't make him ignorant. He knew what prison was like. 

He knew that someone who looked like Johan would be considered a target. He knew specifically a sexual target.

And then he thinks about how physically weak Johan is now. 

He looks at the boy, and he looks so frail. 

He wouldn't be able to defend himself from physical attacks. 

It's hard, to reconcile the overwhelming terror that once Johan inspired in him with the pity he suddenly feels.

He holds no delusions that Johan isn't still incredibly dangerous, of course. He knows Johan's never needed physical strength to wreak havoc. Only his mind.

But then, if he had suffered a hemorrage, even that, then, was in danger of being taken away from him.

Do no harm, he reminds himself, and maybe it's unforgivably reckless and stupid of him, but he looks at Johan and he sees a suffering child. And he remembers the stories he'd heard, in those weeks and months when he had pursued the boy in his wavering conviction to end his life, of that orphanage he had been put into when he had been only eight or nine years old. He remembers the hushed whispers of those who'd known about it, speaking of it with the fear of superstition. Like invoking it in words would somehow bring it down upon their heads. He remembers Bonaparta, and his sniveling, pathetic remorse wich smacked of falsity for how he had looked at Grimmer with still cold, exacting eyes, like a scientist looking at a fascinating test subject, and Johan with stupid and ignorant horror, like the boy was a monster. 

And he remembers Johan, and the grief in his own eyes, as he'd looked back, and had wanted so much to die. Had wanted Kenzo to kill him. He had looked so human then, with that grief in his eyes. With such, unbearable sadness. And he wasn't a monster. Kenzo had realized in that moment, for the first time. Johan wasn't a monster at all. 

Only a scared and lost child. 

A boy who had never even known his own name.

Who couldn't even understand that he was a real human being.

“We'll take him in to my private office.” Kenzo says, already praying he isn't making the wrong choice. “I've got all the necessary equipment set up there. The same if we need to perform surgery.”

Nina looks so relieved, her face lining with awful gratitude, and Kenzo has to look away from her.

“What about assistance?” Dieter asks. “Won't you need, like, help?”

Kenzo nods at him.

“I've got people I trust. They won't talk if I ask them not to. I do a lot of probono, a lot of surgery under the radar of official channels.” He explains.

And suddenly Nina's arms are around him, hugging him desperately, and she's telling him thank you over and over against his shoulder.

Kenzo awkwardly hugs her back, and he looks down at Johan, and sees the boy looking back at him, his face revealing nothing at all.


End file.
